The poet’s first book, a few sonnets and poems, was for “sweet charity’s sake,” and had but a limited circulation. It is safe to say that every first book of a genuine poet, despite its crudities, will show the seeker signs of things to come. Egan’s book was not without promises, but in truth these promises are only partly fulfilled in his latest volume of verse. There may be many reasons adduced for this disparity between promise and fulfilment. One of them is the haste with which poetry is published. Horace’s dictum of using the file has been long since forgotten. The rabble calls for poetry, and, like the Italian and his lentils, care little for the quality. If the poet harkens to the calls (and who among the contemporary bards has laughed it to scorn?) he exchanges perpetuity for the present, notoriety for fame. Nor will the rabble leave the poet freedom in choosing his material. He is simply a tradesman, and must use what is placed at his disposal. Things great and grand must be left unto that day when the poet, untrammelled by worldly care, shall write his heart’s dream. If the time ever comes, the poet learns in sorrow that his dreams will never float into human speech, for the hand has lost its cunning. So the days of youth and manhood pass, blowing bubbles or decorating platitudes. Death snatches the poetling, and oblivion is his coverlid. The songs he sang died with the rabble. The new generation asked for a poet that could drill into the human heart and bring forth its secrets—a listener to nature, her interpreter to man. To such a one the vocabulary of a minor bard is useless. Another reason, more applicable to our author, is that he has been unfortunate to be a pioneer in Catholic American literature. His poems, appealing, as they do, to a distinct class, and that far from being a book-buying one, will fail to attract the lynx-eyed critic who cares only for the general literary purveyor. From such a source, the poet’s chance of corrective criticism has been slight. The class to which Mr. Egan belongs has no criticism to offer its literary food givers. If an author’s book sells, his name is blazoned forth in half a hundred headless petty journals. His most glaring defects become through their glasses mystic beauty spots. He is invited to lecture on all kinds of subjects. A clique grows around him, whose duty it is to puff the master. The reasons, frankly adduced, have limited the scope and dwarfed the really fine genius of Maurice Egan. His latest volume, while containing many poems that reveal hidden powers, has much of the crudity and faults of earlier work. These poems speak of better things that will be fulfilled by the poet if he will consecrate himself wholly to his art, shutting his mind to the rabble shout and eulogious criticism. Then may he hear the rhythms and cadences of that music whose orchestra comprises all things from the shells to the stars, all beings from the worm to man,